Wetlands Feud Muddies Golf-course Plan

February 09, 2005|By RINKER BUCK; Courant Staff Writer

NORTH CANAAN — Permits for his proposal are in limbo.NORTH CANAAN -- When Roland W. Betts, who is frequently identified as President George W. Bush's best friend, set out to build a golf course in the middle of the Litchfield County estate country, he knew it wasn't going to be easy. This community of pristine horse farms and discreetly hidden lakeside retreats doesn't cotton well to rapid development.

Now, 3 1/2 years after he commenced his Yale Farm Golf Club project, Betts' dream of a championship course in the Litchfield hills is threatened once more, this time over charges of favoritism and conflicts of interest at one of the boards that must issue permits for the development.

Three weeks ago, the chairman of the North Canaan Inland Wetlands Commission stopped attending public meetings on the golf course. The unexplained absence of Chairman David J. Ohler followed a letter written by the lawyer for opponents of the course, accusing Ohler of bias and requesting that he disqualify himself from presiding over hearings on the golf course.

Betts' plan to build on Yale Farm -- a graceful, 780-acre estate in North Canaan and Norfolk -- has aroused a firestorm of protest by environmentalists and abutting landowners. The 18-hole course would be built along the headwaters of Hollow Brook, which drains into the Whiting River and eventually into the prime trout habitat of the Housatonic River. Runoff of chemicals and fertilizers from the golf course could threaten this Class A water system, and experts have proposed alternatives for the course that would be less intrusive on the sensitive Housatonic watershed.

Critics and abutting landowners have accused Betts of heavy-handed tactics in the past, a sensitive issue renewed by Ohler's absence in the face of charges of favoritism toward Betts.

Ohler's withdrawal stems from a Dec. 16, 2004, meeting of the wetlands commission, which had convened to reconsider the Yale Farm development after its earlier permit for the golf course was invalidated and sent back for reconsideration by Superior Court Judge John Pickard in Litchfield.

The judge found that wetlands commission members ``clearly knew they were stepping on thin ice'' when they failed to address the location of a mitigation pond to be constructed near the property line of a neighbor.

The Dec. 16 hearing was convened to establish guidelines and schedule witnesses for a lengthy rehearing process, which had placed the project in legal limbo.

The North Canaan Planning and Zoning Commission has approved the project, but technically its permitting cannot proceed with prior approvals from the inland wetlands commission. So all of Betts' North Canaan permits are now held up.

In addition, Betts has made several changes to his plans in response to criticism by environmentalists, which would require revisions to his existing permits.

Before the wetlands meeting convened, Ohler approached Betts in the hearing room of North Canaan's town hall and said, laughing, in the presence of several people: ``You're back -- the court sent you back. This is a joke and you shouldn't be back here. I'm sorry you have to be put through this. We're just going to meet and talk this over but you shouldn't be back here. ... This is a waste of time.''

``No, no,'' Betts replied. ``We're happy to be back and we'll do everything the court and you require.''

On Jan. 18, Bart Halloran, the lawyer for abutting landowners in North Canaan who oppose the project, wrote to Ohler and objected to his remarks.

``I have been told that you referred to the required hearings on the new application as a `waste of time,' and offered your condolences to the applicant for having to make them go through this process again,'' Halloran wrote. ``If you made these remarks ... I request that you immediately disqualify yourself from any further proceedings in this matter.''

Halloran also wrote, ``The manner in which you treated the intervenors [the opponents to the golf course] and their counsel in the last hearings was at times discourteous and disrespectful.''

Halloran accused Ohler of not being prepared to treat his clients ``fairly, without prejudice and in an unbiased manner,'' and requested that he refrain from discussing the Yale Farm project with the four other wetland commission members.

Ohler did not appear at the two subsequent wetlands commission hearings on Yale Farm Golf Course, on Jan. 20 and Feb. 2, and has remained publicly silent on the matter, not disclosing even to other commission members his reasons for withdrawing. Assistant Town Attorney Judith Dixon said she will run the meetings in Ohler's absence.

But this also places the Yale Farm application in a potentially difficult legal situation. Without Ohler, the five-member commission has only four sitting members, raising the potential for a tie vote, which would invalidate the permit. In July 2003, when the wetlands commission originally approved Betts' golf course, the vote was 4-1 in favor.